Lei-off: Obama snubs Dean

The conspicuous absence of Howard Dean from Thursday’s press conference announcing Tim Kaine’s appointment as Democratic National Committee chairman was no accident, according to Dean loyalists.

Rather, they say, it was a reflection of the lack of respect accorded to the outgoing party chairman by the Obama team.

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Despite leading the party in consecutive triumphant election cycles — as well as through off-year races such as when Kaine was elected Virginia governor in 2005 — Dean has become all but invisible since Election Day, passed over for the Cabinet position he coveted and apparently not in line for another administration post.

Indeed, when President-elect Barack Obama introduced Kaine at party headquarters Thursday afternoon, Dean was 7,023 miles and seven time zones away, closer to French Polynesia than to Washington, doing party grunt work in American Samoa.

His allies aren’t happy about it.

“If he had been asked to go to that event, he would have been there,” Jim Dean, the chairman’s brother, noted twice in an interview.

Dean’s reward for the party recapturing the White House, House and Senate, as well as taking control of seven governor’s mansions and eight state legislatures on his watch?

So far, nothing.

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A physician by training who devoted much of his time as Vermont governor to health care, Dean had his eye on becoming secretary of Health and Human Services. But the post went to Obama ally and former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle. The fact that Dean wasn’t even included in Thursday’s ceremonial — and very public — transfer of power from him to Kaine only underscored his isolation.

"The snub today was no accident," said one Dean ally. “I guarantee you he would have rescheduled his trip if asked to attend. It’s easy to [screw] over people when you are riding high in the polls, let's see how many people are singing his praises in six months."

Asked about Dean’s absence, Obama spokesman Ben LaBolt noted that the chairman was out of town and pointed to the president-elect’s praise in prepared remarks.

“He launched a 50-state strategy that made Democrats competitive in places they had not been in years, working with my chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, to give Democrats a majority in the House for the first time in over a decade,” Obama said of the Vermonter.

The obligatory praise did little to placate Dean loyalists, and the mention of Emanuel, who Dean famously clashed with when Democrats took back Congress in 2006, felt to some like a gratuitous slap.

But Dean likely didn’t see the event. Instead of basking in accolades from the president-elect and his own successor in person, the chairman was in American Samoa, completing his effort to visit every state and territorial Democratic Party.

It’s a trip, his backers say, he would have gladly rescheduled to have been present for the Kaine announcement. It’s hardly the victory lap his allies expected — and many of them see it as the final sign of disrespect from Obama forces.

“It’s the most puzzling thing I’ve ever seen in my life,” added a longtime Democrat and friend of Dean, echoing the exasperation and befuddlement many close to him feel about his treatment since the election. “I have tried my best through [Obama advisers] Valerie Jarrett, David Axelrod and David Plouffe to ask if he ever committed some crime. I don’t get it. He’s been a good soldier.”

A third Dean ally compared the outgoing chairman to two other high-profile Democrats who would seem to have given Obamaland more heartburn in the recent past.

“If we can forgive Joe Lieberman for actively campaigning against Obama, this seems crazy to me. And Hillary Clinton did OK, and lots of her people are getting plum assignments,” noted the ally. “I really think [Dean] has rehabilitated himself. He showed he can be team player. It just seems so odd, and I don’t know what the reasons are.”

A fourth Dean admirer found some gallows humor in the doctor’s disappearing act: “He said he wanted to be in the Cabinet,” joked the source. “So they stuffed him in the Cabinet and locked the door.”

Joe Trippi, who was Dean’s presidential campaign manager in 2004 but has not been shy about criticizing his former candidate, praised Dean for his DNC stewardship and willingness to take on the status quo.